Gently Continental (4 page)

Then – and Shelton and H.Q. both know it must come: they have only talked so long to clear the ground – with suicide out, or at least questionable, what remains but to kick the case upstairs? Oh, a show of reluctance on both sides! – Sorry, Shelton, but you see how it is. Just one of those things, sir, it happens to the best of us. – After you've done all the donkey-work. – We have to work as a team, sir. A decent disguise for mutual relief: when H.Q. can lift the phone, and, metaphorically, boot the can into the blue distance. The formula provides for it, and the law allows it. Whitehall listens to H.Q. with Whitehall's usual condescension (have they not seen, with their wary eyes, innumerable cans arrive from the provinces?) and ask questions which are half questions, half insinuations of H.Q.'s naïveté, until they have the facts, the whole facts, nailed immovable for instant reference. Then, strange – most strange! – they begin to argue somewhat like Shelton, though with, in place of Shelton's wistful pleading, a tone of uncontradictable authority, showing how, on the facts rehearsed, on the balance of the facts, the case is suicide, and that H.Q. will do well to wrest this verdict, by correct presentation, from the coroner. Amazement, alarm, in H.Q.! They summon their wits to do battle. The can, hovering invisibly above the wires, speeds now this way, now that. Through fire and brimstone, storm and wrack, H.Q. maintains the cause of the bruises, though assaulted before, beside and behind by the nimble fencer of Whitehall. The bruises, always is their cry, and bloodied but firm, still they cry it. And finally that cry deafens Whitehall, and the can settles a little Londonwards. Continue investigations, Whitehall says, we will confer with the American authorities, it may be, could be, is just possible, that the man has a record that supports your contention. We, for our part, consider it unlikely, but we appreciate your concern. Please keep us informed of any developments. Please give only general statements to the press. Message ends, and H.Q. are uncertain whether they have won or lost the battle. But Whitehall, wiping a little blood from its rapier, knows where the can has come to rest. In course, having now the requested details, they do confer with the American authorities, but the American authorities, after considering the details, are no wiser than before. They'll check it out for the British, naturally, whether X is or is not their national; but right now they can say for sure he is on no list held by them; and the British, they insinuate, would be well advised to keep an open mind on X's nationality, thereby not hindering their investigations by possibly unwarranted reservations. Yes, Whitehall says, yes, and stifles a very polite sigh. Then Whitehall glances at a duty list and makes a few quick calculations. A phone is lifted, a phone rings. There is a departmental query. Gently is your man, says department, Chief Superintendent George Gently. Tell him to report, Whitehall says. And Chief Superintendent Gently reports.

A
LL THIS OCCUPIES
one day after the death of the lonely American – or X, as he now becomes, pending more curious inquiry – a fine and particular day in July, with temperatures pushing the eighties, and a shore breeze turning into a sea breeze, and the Hotel Continental's windows all open. No music there today, not even the most melancholy. No sound of zither, fiddle, accordion, mingling with the soft-murmuring combers. Mrs Breske stays in her room. Trudi Breske refrains from tennis. Frieda, more sombre but not less efficient, undertakes the hotel routine, alone. And the guests – don't know what to do about it, after talking the affair to a standstill; by evening the guests are very bored, and wish the American had died elsewhere. True, the service hasn't suffered, apart from the article of music, and no one has made any prohibitions, which the knowing half-expected; yet, and still, they feel bored, as though something promised has failed to develop, as though a breathless vision of the extraordinary has tailed away into commonplace. They feel guilty, but not guilty enough. They are all too certain of being spectators. X, or the American, may have to do with the Breskes, or some unimaginable unknown, but not with themselves. Academically they are suspects, but no more, and their certain innocence is irksome; yet they cannot return to the established tenor which X, or the American, interrupted. They are suspended, are in a vacuum, or are, in one word, bored. Not even the weather or the evening papers can entirely conceal this grinding truth.

So they sleep, and so they wake; when lo! – a man is in their midst; a man immediately recognizable as Someone by the attention of the reporters; a large man, with big shoulders, with a square face and troubling eyes, looking mentally and physically equipped, as he is, to be the support of giant pyramids: where Stody wilted and Shelton paled, see here Chief Superintendent Gently. Shelton is with him, but Shelton knows his supernumerary status. He hangs back, permits Gently to cut his swathe through the pressmen. And this the mighty man does, like a king moving among his suppliants, and they, the terror of poor Shelton, press not too close upon his majesty. His name is whispered, and the guests have heard it. They are in the presence of a manner of hero. One whose occupation is with death, with many deaths, with death in terror. They stare at Gently, this modern hero, this man who opens up mysteries, whose strong hands, casually filling a pipe, have ripped the veil from many a dying: who has seen what they pray not to see, has dealt with men they pray not to deal with: makes, as vocation, a common thing, what most men fear and turn aside from: at him they stare, a modern hero, a man who occupies himself with death. And he unthinkingly stares back, seeing the straw he will make his bricks with, mindlessly noting a thousand things as he tells the reporters precisely nothing, quite unaware within himself of the projection of a heroic image, which he would immediately know to be false, though it would reveal to him much about those who perceived it. He stares, and eyes fall, though his stare is a mild one. His stare has no penetration, yet it seems to lay one open. He has greenish-hazel eyes that lie peaceably beneath thick brows, but they have some odd power of irradiating people, of setting them in a brilliant light. He sees all round you. You cannot hide from him. No shadow is left to conceal a deception. But all this is serene, has no aggression, is almost shared or exchanged with you. Strange, naked-seeing eyes! What wonder that other eyes fall before them?

The reporters disperse; they have all he'll give them, and they know better than to ask for more. Gently says a few words to Shelton, Shelton, who almost jumps to attention. Listen a moment, Shelton says fiercely, we want statements from all you people. We'll try to get through them as quickly as possible, but I want no one going out before they've made their statement. Is that clear? Perfectly clear! The guests admire Shelton's new note of authority. Right, says Shelton (God bless the formula!), we'll be taking the statements in the office. Then he, and his sergeant, Walters, and a shorthand-writer, Policewoman Dicks, set up shop in the tiny office behind the desk, beneath the alpenhorn; which office, having glass-panelled walls, shows that no deception is intended. But the man himself, the great panjandrum, is he not to be of their number? Apparently not. He pays no attention to the inquisition in the office. He goes outside, comes back inside, makes a tour of the rooms, the stairs, the kitchens, as though he suspects each and all of these to have a close bearing on the death of the American; and in a curious way, by doing this, he makes it seem not the least improbable, so that those who see him begin to peer about too and to search for guilt in familiar things. Then, having made everyone uneasy, and said something in Italian to the waiter Carlo, he goes through the big carved door lettered:
Eingang Verboten
, behind which is Mrs Breske's private parlour suite. And so is lost to the eyes of the guests, who yet feel a great deal less innocent than when he arrived.

Mrs Breske is in her parlour. She is sitting in a rocking-chair by the window. Her big face is puffy and suety and sagging and her mouth, partly open, shows uneven teeth. She has a trace of moustache and a wart on her chin from which the hair grows bushily. The hair of her head, still dark, is parted in the centre and is perfectly straight. She rocks herself. She moans. She stares before her with bulbous grey eyes. She is wearing a widow's dress, entirely black, with short sleeves which are too tight for her. A thick, podgy woman with rolling breasts and plump calves, and a tendency to drift into spells of abstraction: this is Edith Breske at fifty. She starts when she hears Gently's knock. She calls, Herein! – and struggles from the chair. Gently, entering, begs her not to rise, and she falls back in the chair, which oscillates dumbly. Herr Inspektor – Superintendent. Ach, in my country that is Inspektor. Gently smiles. He has a winning smile. Edith Breske feels she may like him. Will you not sit yourself, Herr Inspektor? Gently chooses a frail, painted chair: there are six of these, and a matching sofa, with a scene from a boar-hunt embroidered on the back-rest. The carpet also, pale, fine-piled, depicts scenes of hawking and hunting, with ruffled men in tricorn hats astride small but fiery, caracoling, horses. A very fine carpet, yes, is true? Gently admits it is very fine. You like my furniture? Gently likes it. Ach, it cost Edith Breske a great deal of money. The carpet, the chairs, the sofa were once the property of Prinz Josef Czynska – you know, related to the Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürsts, and so, of need, to Maria Theresa? Gently confesses to not knowing this, yet Edith Breske affirms it; feels now established aboon her might, and at least on a level with Herr Inspektor. But what can she tell him, that she has not told already, to that other, inferior, Herr Unterinspektor?

GENTLY

I want you to tell me, Mrs Breske, everything you remember about the deceased.

MRS BRESKE

But there is nothing! He is here six, seven weeks, and I do not speak to him more than twice.

GENTLY

Did he have an accent?

MRS BRESKE

Ach, yes. He came from America, is true. He has that slur, you know, and he speaks through his nose. I, myself, have met many Americans. During the War I was in London. This one, yes, he is like the others, indeed, is certain.

GENTLY

He had a strong accent?

MRS BRESKE

Oh, ja.

GENTLY

Perhaps a little too strong?

MRS BRESKE

How is that?

GENTLY

His accent impressed you though he spoke so little. Perhaps the accent was a fake.

MRS BRESKE

(And she is stirred by this, her eyes swelling, her hands thrusting; her hands, on the thickened ring finger of which she still wears a fat gold band.)

Is not so, I tell you! He is an American from New York. His clothes too, his face, his ways – why should I tell you what is not so? Ask Frieda, she will tell you. I do not lie about this.

GENTLY

(Shrugs.)

Just an idea. Why did he come to your hotel?

MRS BRESKE

Why? How should I know that? Why do other people come?

GENTLY

Have other Americans stayed here?

MRS BRESKE

No. My clients are English people.

GENTLY

No other nationalities – say Austrians?

MRS BRESKE

I do not remember. Ask Frieda.

GENTLY

Then surely you'd be rather interested in this one, your first, American. You'd want to give him a good impression. And in fact, he did stay on for six weeks?

MRS BRESKE

I cannot help about that. He is just a guest like other people. He say, It suit me, is what I want, I will stay on: like that.

GENTLY

He owed you nothing?

MRS BRESKE

Ach, no!

GENTLY

He always paid you in English money?

MRS BRESKE

In English money, ja.

GENTLY

No travellers' cheques?

MRS BRESKE

(Shakes her head.)

GENTLY

Didn't you wonder what he was doing here, staying on from week to week – no letters, no contacts; just idling away his time?

MRS BRESKE

It is his business, what he does.

GENTLY

But you'd have made some remark. You'd have said: You're having a long holiday, Mr Clooney, some little thing like that.

MRS BRESKE

(She rocks the chair, her eyes protruding and distant. The impression you have is that her soul has departed, is perhaps wandering the streets of pre-war Vienna.)

GENTLY

Well?

MRS BRESKE

Ja, some little thing. I try to remember myself. About his wife, I say that. That she will wonder where he is got to.

GENTLY

And what did he say?

MRS BRESKE

Ach, a joke. Yes, he is laughing, I remember. She is going, mmn, mmn, with other men, she will not wonder about him.

GENTLY

But he admitted having a wife.

MRS BRESKE

I tell you, it was a joke.

GENTLY

Was he . . . bitter, about it?

MRS BRESKE

No, not that one. He does not care, you understand?

GENTLY

Would you say he had something on his mind.

MRS BRESKE

He does not care about his wife. He laughs, he has jokes about her, is all over long ago. Ach, poor woman, whoever she is! I know. I know.

(And Edith Breske is absent again, this time certainly in Vienna, waltzing again with that romantic fiddler, that Martin Breske, her first and falsest.)

GENTLY